Executive Director of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Ghana Prof Henry Kwasi Prempeh has said the use of nose masks in the country should be regulated by law.

He believes that this is the only way to ensure that the directive to control the spread of the coronavirus is strictly observed in the country.

“This is not just a matter of personal comfort or convenience; to the extent that your act or omissions as an individual could visit harm or injury on a third party," said on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday.

President Akufo-Addo urged all Ghanaians to use face masks to avert contracting the novel coronavirus.

Addressing the nation for the seventh time since the country reported two positive cases of Covid-19 Sunday, he said Health Ministry will very soon issue guidelines on face masks for public use.

He added, “Like the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recently advised, I want to encourage you to wear a mask wherever you go, as it will help you not to contract the virus, and keep it clean.”

“If you own a business or are providing a service, i.e. a barber, a hairdresser, a tailor, a taxi driver, a trotro driver and his ‘mate’, a shop keeper, a food seller, please do well to use a mask,” he said.

This the CDD Ghana Executive Director boss said should be backed by a law to achieve its target.

"If indeed we can leave our homes and the risk factors are still there, then we need to take measures to mitigate those risks,” he said.

He further added that he found nothing wrong with government’s decision to lift a 21-day ban on movements placed in some parts of the country.

According to him, “there’s a whole lot of variation in country responses to Covid-19,” thus, it was not necessary to make decisions based on what other countries were doing.

“There’s no science really to this; when it is appropriate to either impose or lift a lockdown,” he said.

He however relayed his fears on how information is being “aggregated in the country.”

Prof Prempeh said government has a role of providing accurate and disaggregated information to citizens in the country, which in this case is not being done properly.

“I think the information has been too aggregated at the national level. This [Covid-19] requires a lot of behavioral modification so we need a lot more disaggregated data; on how the virus is behaving in our midst.

"We need to have the kind of disaggregation because it’s about us, our lives and livelihood.”

He also called for enhanced public education on all appropriate and effective measures to check the spread of the virus to be given to the general public.

“Enhanced public education is what we need,” he said.